LITMIR.BIZ

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corpse’s gaze narrowed, focusing. He rubbed his forehead. Closing his eyes against the harsh overhead light, he moaned. Bitsy ran out of rational explanations.

      “You’re dead.” Her held breath whooshed out with the words.

      The man squinted one eye open, letting out another soft groan. His body shuddered at the room’s cool temperature. His nose sniffed the chemical smell. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he gave Bitsy a thorough once-over. She pulled tight the lab jacket she’d slipped on against the room’s coolness, but her leather miniskirt and fishnet stockings were still visible. She watched the man’s gaze lift to take in her skull earrings, the white foundation, black lipstick, her hair dyed jet-black and streaked with silver.

      He wet his lips and swallowed as if his mouth were dry. His voice came out a croak. “Something tells me this isn’t the Pearly Gates.”

      “This is Memorial Manor,” she said with as much dignity as possible for someone with a bride of Frankenstein beehive. She’d been dressing when the phone had rung. Gwen’s son had tripped over the shreds of his mummy costume and needed stitches. Could Bitsy fill in at the funeral home for a few hours? Uncle Nelson never left it unattended on Halloween. Bitsy had zipped a skirt over her bodysuit and fishnet stockings and rushed right over.

      The man massaged his forehead. His hands were broad, big-knuckled. “What’s Memorial Manor? A halfway house to heaven?” His speech was thick. He paused to wet his lips again. “Your people must not have talked to my many fans. They’d definitely have me first in line to fire and damnation.”

      “You’re not dead.”

      The man’s mouth lazily lifted at one corner. “That’s a relief. Now, maybe you could tell me where the hell…sorry, poor choice of words. Where am I exactly?”

      “Memorial Manor is a funeral home.”

      The man pointed a finger at her. “But you said I’m not dead.”

      “You were,” she tried to explain. “Now, you’re not.”

      “Either I’m dead…” The man swung his long legs across the narrow gutter on the side of the gurney. “…or I’m not.” He stood up quickly as if needing the floor’s firmness beneath his feet. The sheet almost slipped away from his body. Before he caught it, Bitsy endured a vision of golden maleness.

      She averted her head. “Believe me, you’re alive.”

      “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Now, explain to me what I’m doing here and how I got here?”

      The slur was gone. He spoke with the strength that defined him physically. Bitsy looked back, relieved to see the sheet securely gathered and tucked in tight at his waist. “There must’ve been a mistake.”

      He arched one brow.

      “A big mistake,” she offered.

      He studied her with keen, assessing eyes. “You work here?”

      She nodded. Her skull earrings swayed.

      “And your job title would be?”

      She went for a delicate laugh. “Haven’t you ever seen Vera the Vampire Vixen before?”

      “No. And yet until now, I believed I’d lived a full life, which, according to you, I’m about to continue.”

      “Heck, I saw three of them tonight already on my way here from the house. Vampire vixens were more popular than I expected this year.”

      The man kneaded his forehead as if warding off a migraine. “Who would’ve guessed?”

      “I’ll admit we do get carried away, but around here, Halloween is like a national holiday.”

      The man stopped rubbing his brow. “And where exactly is ‘around here’?”

      “Canaan, California.”

      The man still looked blank.

      “About twenty miles south of San Francisco,” Bitsy explained. “The City of Death.”

      “The City of Death?” the man repeated.

      Bitsy nodded. Her skull earrings swung. “We’ve got seventeen cemeteries, one million corpses and a funeral home on almost every corner. We’ve got more famous residents here than Los Angeles—except ours are all dead.”

      The man looked at her as if waiting for the punch line.

      “Tina Turner’s dog was buried in a fur coat at the Pets Rest Cemetery.”

      The other corner of the man’s mouth quirked, his smile complete. And devastating. “It’s Halloween. I’m in Canaan, California, City of Death,” he repeated. He studied her, his large palm still shading his face, making the angled lines longer, bolder. “You’re a mortician?”

      “Restorative artist,” she corrected.

      The man stared at her a second more before breaking into a spontaneous laugh, his teeth flashing white. Something seized inside Bitsy and tightened. Yearnings remembered, desires denied. She smiled back tentatively. Alive, the man was deadly.

      “Okay, what am I doing here?” His laughter stopped.

      Bitsy’s hesitant smile remained. “The report of your demise is greatly exaggerated?”

      Clutching the sheet at his waist, the man began to pace, sidestepping the large drain in the middle. Despite his size, he moved with an unanticipated grace. He stopped and aimed a finger at her. Bitsy pressed tighter to the counter.

      “Let’s go over this once more. You’re Vera the Vampire Vixen.” His finger jabbed his bare chest. “I’m Lazarus.” His one hand clutched the sheet while the other panned the room. “And this is Memorial Manor, where they obviously strive to put the ‘fun’ in funeral.”

      Unable to give the man the logical explanation he demanded, Bitsy said nothing. The slim glint of a scalpel on the floor near him caught her attention. She took a sideways step toward the instrument fallen from the cart. She was sure there was a reason for what had happened, and the man seemed harmless…but bottom line, he was a man. A half-naked, very alive man. It was more than enough of a combination to make Bitsy wary.

      She inched her body along the counter, closer to the scalpel.

      “And tonight’s Halloween,” the man continued.

      “Trick or…” She slid her foot toward the knife.

      “Treat,” the man finished as he swooped down and snatched the scalpel. Bitsy jerked her head up and met the man’s dark-blue eyes.

      He tested the blade with the pad of his thumb. Her breath stilled, a dreaded helplessness coming over her. The silence was long, magnifying their aloneness. As Gwen had called over her shoulder as she’d hurried out the door earlier, “It should be nice and quiet until I get back. There’s only you and one in the icebox.”

      The “one in the icebox” looked at her now as his thumb rhythmically smoothed across the edge of the scalpel.

      She thought of Gwen, the sudden emergency, the too obviously gorgeous corpse. Halloween. Comprehension came, along with relief and annoyance as Bitsy realized exactly what was going on.

      Trick or treat.

      “Give me that.” She seized the instrument so quickly the man didn’t have time to react. “It’ll have to be sterilized.” She aimed the knife at his chest. “Lanie put you up to this, didn’t she?”

      “Excuse me?” To his credit, the man was convincingly confused.

      “And Gwen is in on it, too, isn’t she?” Bitsy jabbed the knife in the air, underscoring her words.

      “Who’s Lanie? Who’s Gwen?”

      “You know damn—” Bitsy stopped. Giving up swearing was part of her control program.

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